The adoption of so-called smart mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, etc. by consumers and enterprises is occurring at a staggering rate. It is estimated that such devices will shortly eclipse the annual shipments of desktop and laptop computers. Employees frequently bring mobile devices into work, i.e. in the enterprise. With the proliferation of mobile devices in the enterprises, Information Technology (IT) administrators can no longer ignore these devices as outside their scope of responsibility. In fact, mobile devices are now as powerful as laptop computers. Employees want to access corporate data and the Internet through wireless networks such as Wi-Fi hotspots (IEEE 802.11 and variants thereof) or cellular data networks (e.g., 3G/4G, WiMax, etc.) which are outside the control of IT. On mobile devices, the line between enterprise and personal usage is blurred. Since the enterprise typically does not own the device, enforcing policies for acceptable usage or installing application controls as a traditional IT administrator would on a corporate PC, is often not viable.
As such, enterprises are deploying Mobile Device Management (MDM) systems and methods that secure, monitor, manage, and support mobile devices deployed across mobile operators, service providers and enterprises. Conventional MDM systems and methods include a server component, which sends out the management commands to the mobile devices, and a client component, which runs on the mobile device and receives and implements the management commands. In some cases, a single vendor may provide both the client and the server, in others client and server may come from different sources. Exemplary MDM functionality includes over-the-air distribution of applications, data and configuration settings, device diagnostics, backup and restore, security, network usage monitoring, asset tracking, troubleshooting, and the like. Disadvantageously, conventional MDM systems and methods include a single point of failure at the server, requirement to reroute mobile MDM traffic when roaming, scalability issues, difficulty in combining MDM with mobile security, increased cost of ownership, longer deployment cycles, and the like.